


They Were Magnetic

by theepiccek



Category: Daisy Jones & The Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid
Genre: Epistolary, F/M, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:08:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21742711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theepiccek/pseuds/theepiccek
Summary: The following are from Julia Dunne Rodriguez’s background research, along with a number of sections that were ultimately cut out of concern for the memory of those no longer able to refute or support them, or those living who made their comments off the record.
Relationships: Billy Dunne & Daisy Jones, Billy Dunne/Camila Dunne, Billy Dunne/Daisy Jones
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	They Were Magnetic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [caravanslost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caravanslost/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! 
> 
> I really hope you enjoy this, I had so much fun playing around with different styles & different aspects of the book. I was taken by your prompt of what if Billy had taken that final drink, and I know this isn't quite that, I hope the inspiration is clear. My re-(and re-re-re-)reading of this book for Yuletide just drove home how unreliable even Billy & Daisy & Camila all are as narrators of their own stories, that it made me wonder what that must be like for one of Billy & Camila's daughers to be writing it.

The following are from Julia Dunne’s background research, along with a number of sections that were ultimately cut out of concern for the memory of those no longer able to refute or support them, or those living who made their comments off the record.

***

~~_Billy_ ~~

~~_Here’s the thing._ ~~

~~_You have a family. And they’re a good one. I don’t… I don’t really know what a family should look like, except that you have one in Camila and your girls, and with Graham and Karen and Warren and Eddie and Pete. I’m just the add on, and I can’t be the final weight that sinks the boat._ ~~

~~_Dear Billy_ _,_ ~~

~~_It’s not enough_ ~~

_I’m sorry_

_Daisy._

_***_

From: jennifer@randomhouse.com

To: “Julia Dunne Rodriguez”

Date: March 2, 2018

Subject: RE: Draft Two

Julia, I agree we need your transcript included in the final section with Daisy.

In terms of addressing the unanswered questions: have you thought about re-interviewing Billy to clarify Daisy’s POV?

From: jennifer@randomhouse.com

To: “Julia Dunne Rodriguez”

Date: April 14, 2018

Subject: Quick List

  * Did you confirm your sisters are on board with the publication lining up with the 40th anniversary?
  * the national association for the children of addiction confirmed for book launch donation
  * Any update from Billy re: follow up?



From: jennifer@randomhouse.com

To: “Julia Dunne Rodriguez”

Date: June 11, 2018

Subject: Billy

If Billy won’t go on the with a new interview, you need to rework the July 12 section. it reads like you’re protecting him and takes away from the unreliable narrator flow-through.

Sent from my iPhone.

***

_Here’s a hypothetical:_

It’s November 1973 and you’re Billy Dunne. You’re standing outside the hospital lobby deciding if you should go up. Deciding if you can go up.

Teddy comes out, tells you your daughter was born. Lays out the options: clean up your act right now, or _get_ clean.

You say okay. You bound inside, still terrified that you’re a father, and there are these people relying on you to be a better person than you know you are. But Camila needs you, and you need Camila and the family you’re making together.

A month later you go on a bender that last three nights, holed up in a motel ten blocks away from your place, thinking about the fact that you have a daughter now. Every time you think about her, the ceiling seems to stretch a little closer to you, pushing the room in more and more.

Until you wake up one morning and the morning is full of proper sunshine like it hasn’t been for nearly a month now, and it feels like the right idea might have been getting clean, and isn’t the sound of sunshine the best backing track for a fresh start?

So you call Teddy, and after Teddy you call Graham, and after Graham you think about calling Camila, but the sunshine is blinding and you don’t like the shadows it casts.

You last a month in rehab. It’s too sterile and calm and it feels like a constant itch beneath your skin. You tell yourself you’re under control, that you don’t need this. You have Camila and Julia now, the same way you have The Six.

***

Julia: I think he’s lying to me

Susana: What… do you mean?

Julia: _[s_ _ighs]_

I think he actually cheated. I think he’s talking around it, and he cheated and he doesn’t want to say.

***

_Wait, one more hypothetical:_

It’s now 1976. You’re Daisy Jones, freshly back in LA after Scotland. You toured with The Six, and sat down for the Rolling Stone article that everyone is pretending they haven’t read (except Eddie who’s mad he didn’t get properly quoted) and Rod tells you “look Billy is thinking about it - I mean they’re all thinking about it, but Billy mostly”.

And you know how it works, Billy likes a hand on the wheel at all times, Billy won’t let them get off track and if Billy thinks you’ll run them off the road, he won’t even open the door.

So you all get off the plane and everyone is smiling, but Billy won’t even look you in the face, and Graham and Karen are talking with Eddie and Pete and Rod walks you out with a twinkle in his eye and you know it probably means it’ll all work out.

You get in a cab and check into you favourite place in your favourite city and you spend spend a few days blissed out on cocaine and sunlight and fresh air, and you think about if ( _if_ ) you do get asked to join The Six.

You think about writing and album with Billy Dunne and Teddy Price and the feeling of being on stage with all of them and the thrill of it all rushes through you as you think about how long you can sustain that high.

But then you think about Billy Dunne’s face when you invited him into your room, and how disdainful he always is, and how little he likes giving up control.

So when Rod calls and say you’re in, you say “fuck Billy Dunne” and slam the phone back down.

***

_[Sections deleted from 'Aurora World Tour: 1978-1979', referencing Daisy's drug use in 1978]_

Julia: Billy told me that just before Teddy died, you said you wanted to get clean. What did you mean by that?

Daisy: I…

…

I meant I wanted to stop needing. Stop needing the drugs.

I wanted to go back to being able to live my life without needing the reds and the blues. I wanted the red to be the sunrise and the blues my music. That’s what I meant.

—

Simone: I don’t know what she told Billy Dunne, but I know when I met her at the airport in LA, she looked worse than any of the other near misses I ever had with her. Whatever happened in Chicago broke Daisy. But we put her back together, and look at her now.

I know he’s your Dad, and I know she would never agree, but Daisy Jones never needed Billy Dunne.

—

Karen: When I heard that Daisy Jones had gone to rehab, I thought yeah right. But when I realised it was serious and Daisy really was in rehab, I was just so relieved. I was worried that Daisy was going to end up one of ours who flames out, you know? If I had thought I’d ever be doing something like this forty years later, I think I would have expected to be telling you half mythic stories about the late great Daisy Jones. It’s nice to know that she got to keep being the alarmingly alive Daisy Jones all these years.

***

_[excerpts from Billy Dunne’s song writing notebook, circa 1979]_

_First thing_

_Monday morning_

_Sun is shining_

_Your hands in mine_

_The taste of you_

_Is on my skin_

_—_

_Hey, hey, hey,_

_Yeah we each march_

_We march along to the beats_

_To the beats of our own drum_

_Hey,_

_Hey, I see your face_

_Hey, I watch you smile_

_Hey, hey, hey,_

_Can you smile like that at me_

_Yeah we each march,_

_We march along to the beats_

_To the beats of our own_

_Hey, hey, hey_

_We collide_

_Collide and crash_

_Crash together_

_Two halves of the same whole_

_Hey, yeah, hey, hey_

_—_

_WHAT ARE YOU DOING_

_TO ME_

_WHAT AM I DOING_

_TO MYSELF_

***

_Okay, this is the last hypothetical:_

It’s 197-whatever.

You’ve been part of Daisy Jones and the Six for three years now, and you’re onto the fifth love of your life

Music

Camila

Alcohol

Drugs

Fame

So when Daisy knocks on your hotel room door one night and says she wants to get clean… you let her in. You’ve beat this before, and you want to help someone else beat it.

Because if someone else can do it, it means you can stick with it. When you go to get Daisy a water, both of your gazes land on the minibar, and for a moment you freeze, and time slows down and you remember why you avoided being alone with Daisy at first.

But Daisy is here, asking for help, and the only way you know how to help - how to stop - is to get rid of the mini bar as quickly as possible. One second you’re looking at the minibar and there’s an open window the next you’re by the window and the bottles are shattering on the concrete of the roof below.

Daisy is looking at you, wide eyed and grateful.

And you remember the reason you try to not be alone with Daisy now.

And even in your dreams, you don’t think too much about what it would be like to slide your hands through her hair - surely your fingers snag on knots - and tilt her head back as you bring your mouth down onto hers. You refuse to think about what her skin would feel like under your calluses, or the sounds she would make as you both stretch out on the crisp sheets.

But now it’s real life, and it occurs to you that in another time, Daisy could be the new and best love of your life.

The next morning you’re lying still in the bed, Daisy curled up on the other side, with the dawn just breaking through when the phone rings. The concierge puts Artie through, and the brief confusion shatters almost immediately.

Even after spending the night with Daisy, this still feels like the moment your life falls apart.

***

_[The last on the record interview given by Camila Dunne, late-May 2012]_

Camila: The life I had with your father after he got sober and especially after the band broke up is exactly the life I wanted when I was 24 and moved out to LA to marry him. For all his struggles and his flaws, he loved me and he loved you and your sisters. He loved the music and he loved being on stage, but he didn’t need that, not the way he needed the stability we gave him, I think. Have you spoken with Graham yet?

Julia: Yeah, an initial interview last month.

Camila: Did he -

Julia: Tell me about Karen and the abortion? Yeah.

Camila: Right, well it’s the same with Graham I think - at the end of the day, they needed people who adored them, and for a while that was the fans and for a shorter period of time, it was the whole world.

But for your father, for 33 years, it was mostly me. I held him within me everyday, and I like to think he held me within him.

***

_[voicemail message left for Daisy Jones, May 2013]_

Billy: Oh… uh, hi Daisy. This is Billy. Billy Dunne. Julia gave me your number - she said c - Camila had it. I guess you heard she passed. _[clears throat]_ I was calling to see if you wanted to get lunch or something sometime. Not a drink of course _[laughs]_. Just shoot the shit about old times.

Anyway. Let me know. This is my number.

I hope you call back, Daisy. 


End file.
